


building a future (and tearing down the past)

by EternalEclipse



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Post-Winter War (Bleach), Pre-Relationship, UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4, Worldbuilding, admittedly by the end they still haven't gotten there, but there is still a positive emotional progression, can probably be read as either gen or slash, don't expect canon compliance from the tybw related bit bc I didn't finish reading it, ethical experimentation, in my canon? apparently more likely than you think, lowkey karin/harribel side pairing apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21964633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalEclipse/pseuds/EternalEclipse
Summary: At first, Ichigo had just been an invention of Kisuke's, nothing more than a gear to be moved. A pawn. It was only natural that after the war, Kisuke left him to his own devices--they'd won, which was the best he could ask for. As it turns out, once he starts making things for Ichigo instead of just countering Aizen, it's a hard habit to break. By the end of it, he won't even want to.Or, five times Kisuke made things with Ichigo in mind, and one time Ichigo asked him to destroy something.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 10
Kudos: 392
Collections: UraIchi Prompt Challenge #4





	building a future (and tearing down the past)

**Author's Note:**

> For Uraichi PC4 prompt 030. 5+1 Times Fic. :D  
> Thanks to Ace on the Uraichi server for the title!

* * *

I.

* * *

At first, Kisuke had been willing to let things lie. Things had mostly worked out as he’d planned this time. Aizen was finally facing punishment for his crimes, as close to dead as he could be made to be these days. Soul Society had acquitted those victims of his who yet lived, including himself and the people he’d dragged with him a hundred years before. He was in a good place to negotiate with anyone he needed to and spend his time how he wished. The balance of the worlds was secure.

He hadn’t thought much of Kurosaki after it had been confirmed that he’d survived but would lose his shinigami powers. The boy had served his purpose admirably, and just how he’d expected, but the mission was over and it was time for him to let go. It was easy. He’d been trained that way.

Tessai didn’t mention him. Neither did Yoruichi, once she confirmed that he wasn’t hanging around. Kurosaki Isshin barely even spared a ‘thank you’ before retreating to pretend at happy family. It took until the end of the six-month negotiation between the Vizards and the Gotei for anyone to mention Ichigo to him.

If he’d thought about it, he’d have known that Shinji wouldn’t leave well enough alone. “Oi, Urahara, where’s the kid?”

Kisuke spread his fan in front of his face. “Ah, Jinta and Ururu are running some errands, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for them to get back.”

“Don’t be dense, Urahara.” Shinji scowled at him. “Nevermind, I’ll find ‘im myself.”

The next day, Shinji dragged him over to a spot at the river where Ichigo was throwing stones. He was uncharacteristically alone and looked like he’d lost an unhealthy amount of weight. “Fix it, or I’ll fix _ya_.”

Hiyori hit him over the head with a sandal the next time she saw him, and he let her once he saw the look on her face. She grabbed his collar after, and growled at him. “You told me you left the Stealth Force when you joined the 12th. Is this how you leave a comrade?”

He’d never recategorized Ichigo from ‘creation’ or ‘pawn’ to ‘comrade’, not properly. He’d fought to keep the balance, not like the Vizards had to stand by Ichigo. It had never connected for him to need to do so. But the Vizards claimed him as a comrade, and he’d learned to see them as more than just pawns against Aizen too. He could overcome that training to see Ichigo the same was. There was no reason not to, at least, and he did owe the Vizards. He didn’t consider the Stealth Force training to be as bad as his old lieutenant did, but it wasn’t the first time he’d had to butt heads with its leftovers to fit in with society after. Ichigo did look pretty bad, he realized once he started looking. Moreover, it was his fault, that someone who had risen so far had fallen down farther. A familiar emotion surged through him—guilt.

That was enough, actually. Kisuke tailed Ichigo for two weeks before retreating to his lab. The balance in Ichigo’s soul was delicate, but naturally occurring souls were fairly hardy. Between the two he had some ideas of how to amend what had gone wrong there. He’d invent something that worked, be done, and Ichigo would go on his way.

Right.

Better not to tell Ichigo though, because it was better not to get anyone’s hopes up in case it was beyond him.

And so passed the better part of a year, observing and tinkering and testing, until Isshin landed at the Shoten doors, concerned over some newcomers in town and asking if there was any way to restore Ichigo’s powers. He’d have grumbled over the scientific process if the Fullbringers hadn’t been so concerning.

A fear he didn’t understand sent him to his knees in front of the Shinigami to rush the last piece of the project. There were alternatives, most likely. Given enough time, he could have pushed in enough spiritual power between himself and hollows killed in Karakura, and even convinced the local Quincies to pitch in for Ichigo’s sake, but that could have taken months or years, and it wouldn’t have been fast enough for this.

Yamamoto was the first person to add his reiatsu to the blade. Shinji was the second, smiling unsettlingly at Urahara all the while.

It was still nearly too late, but not quite. Kisuke’s hands were dry around his fan only through judicious applications of Stealth Force tricks. Against Ginjō, Ichigo blazed like a full moon. Urahara had to shield his eyes from the full force of his attacks. He knew better than to expect to feel less guilt—just less that he could change. His heart told him that he could have added this light back to the world that much faster. Seeing Ichigo interact with high-ranking members of the Gotei felt like a blow to that corner of his brain that wasn’t quite sure that Ichigo was a person. And in another disused corner, there was a strange sense of relief.

Ichigo thanked him with a grand smile, and Kisuke covered his face as he responded. He wasn’t worthy of that smile, but he was suddenly glad that it was out in the world.

He was expecting for this to be the end of things. He was also very wrong.

* * *

II.

* * *

Kisuke had been somewhat aware that Kurosaki Karin was also getting involved in the spiritual world these days. He had not known it was far enough that she’d managed to get herself kidnapped to Hueco Mundo by one of the surviving Fracción.

It had been fine. Turned out that Halibel had been curious about a new figure running around with some hollow reiatsu and thought it might have been Ichigo. Karin hadn’t seemed to be in a hurry to come home either, and regularly returned to Hueco Mundo to chat with Halibel and her Fracción. Kisuke was pretty sure that Ichigo had gotten a face full of things that no brother really wanted to see their sister doing. He’d narrowly avoided the same the last time he’d had a reason to visit Hueco Mundo.

All may have ended well, but it was still the impetus for his newest invention. At the very least, he’d get less of Ichigo rushing in because his sisters had gone missing again.

It was the work of a week to create a set of communicators whose reach spanned from Hell to the Royal Realm and anywhere in between. He presented three of them to Ichigo once they were done.

He was not expecting Ichigo’s response. Kisuke had just finished explaining how to contact the different units when he found his face under Ichigo’s intent gaze, rather than his hands. “Is there anything else that would be helpful for these?” Kisuke asked.

“Just one. How do we contact your unit?”

“My unit?” Why would Ichigo need to—he pulled out a fan to use as a barrier from Ichigo seeing his confusion. “Why would I have one of these?”

Ichigo’s scowl deepened “Well, they’re useful, aren’t they? The Shinigami have to be paying a pretty penny for something like this. Byakuya mentioned that they’re spending more time here and in Hueco Mundo lately, so something like this has got to make reporting in quicker, yeah? Anyway, I appreciate you getting some for my sisters, especially when they don’t have anything to do with the shinigami, but if you’re staying then shouldn’t you have one? If nothing else then just in case we get in over our heads?”

Kisuke tactfully failed to mention that if Ichigo got in over his head then Kisuke would definitely be able to feel it from the next town over. Maybe the next dimension over. He supposed selling the design to the Gotei on top of the ones he’d made to keep them happy wouldn’t be the worst idea. They could probably use them, as long as he built in some protections for himself and the Vizards just in case Central started getting any bad ideas…

Ichigo noticed his distraction and moved towards bringing the conversation back to his point. “So, how do we talk to you?”

“Hmm, come back this weekend and I’ll show you, I need to tweak something first,” Kisuke promised.

He missed Ichigo scowling at his back as he bent to pick up the three units. It shouldn’t be too bad, he figured. He could toss it in a pocket or something. It's not like he'd made them particularly bulky, or heavy... 

Ichigo left shortly after, and Kisuke found himself reflecting on the conversation. How him handing off a few of his inventions had turned into promising to give Ichigo a direct phone line to him, he wasn’t entirely sure, but what he did know was that Kurosaki Ichigo’s charisma was a deadly weapon.

* * *

III.

* * *

Kisuke isn’t often blindsided these days. Even in exile, his information networks put nearly everyone else’s to shame, and with his pardon some of the few people who wouldn’t deal with him for a price were now talking. But the Quincies? They blindsided him, and blindsided him hard.

He felt like he was three steps behind as he worked to find a solution to the bankai-stealing problem, the shadow dimension transfer problem, and figure out what was the Zero Squad’s game. Not that the last was going to matter if he couldn’t find a way to overcome their leader. Juha Bach was terrifying, and he had no qualms about admitting it.

Hells, Aizen agreed that Juha Bach was terrifying, and he hadn’t thought he’d agree with Aizen on anything short of being this close to the end of the world.

So maybe this wasn’t exactly only for Ichigo, and Ichigo wasn’t the only one who could potentially use it, but he had made it with Ichigo in mind. Construction finished while Ichigo, Abarai, and the Kuchikis were healing up with the Zero Squad, and at the first opportunity after Kisuke stole Ichigo away to the training ground under Sokyoku Hill to test it out.

“What’s going on?” Ichigo asked. He was clearly trying not to sound tired. He didn’t do hopeless, but tired wasn’t a good sign either.

“This.” Kisuke unveiled his newest invention.

“Oh, I recognize this. It’s the bankai in three days thing. What’s going on, Urahara-san?”

“Yes, this is a tenshintai. However, it is not quite the one you remember. This one will help drag out your inner hollow, so that it can progress to being an arrancar and learn Resurrectión. The Quincies have prepared to deal with Shinigami, but they have a lot less experience against and are more vulnerable to Hollow reiatsu.”

Ichigo’s face brightened with determination, and something in Kisuke eased. “Let me guess, I’ve got three days to get this right?”

“Of course. Although it will be even harder than the first time, because you’re going to have to build yourself up to full power first.” Kisuke smiled under his hat. “Are you ready to start?” 

Ichigo nodded, and grabbed the tenshintai from him before plopping onto the ground to meditate with it. His eyes were closed, so he didn’t notice Kisuke’s distraction. Which didn’t hurt, because Kisuke’s thoughts were all versions of ‘ _I should be immune to this by now_.’

It took a lot less time this time around for Ichigo to start showing outward signs of what was going on in his inner world. The tenshintai morphed into what looked like a white version of Ichigo with hollow eyes and his own sword. The hollow smirked in Kisuke’s direction, and ran at Ichigo before the boy had even opened his eyes.

Kisuke quickly got out of attacking range and settled down to watch the fight. Ichigo blocked the first strike on instinct, not even properly opening his eyes until the hollow, cackling, went in for a second swing.

Kisuke ended up taking out a notebook and jotting down theories. The first few hours weren’t very interesting. By the end of the third hour, the hollow pulled out the first level of their mask, which made the fight a bit speedier but not by much. Ichigo showed few signs of hollowification, so they had a good while to go. By the sixth hour, the mask had only progressed slightly, and Kisuke considered the merits of catching a nap before the fight really got going.

Sixteen hours in, and the hollow’s body was mostly covered with white bone. The final piece of that came by hour eighteen, when the tail grew. This is when the hollow started getting a lot more bestial and instinct-driven, and Ichigo started getting tossed around a lot more. There was still not much for Kisuke to do, so he watched and he waited. Ichigo tried beating down the hollow with his sword, and his fists, with blut and without, and even one lousy attempt at a kidō. Nothing seemed to be holding, until it was. By the twenty three hour mark, Ichigo was steadily growing hollow bone over his own body, until, just after a day into the ordeal, Ichigo locked horns with his hollow, overpowered him in a cero battle, and consumed him. Ichigo’s hollow went down cackling.

Step one complete, he supposed.

Two days left, and the next thing for Ichigo to do would be to progress to being an Arrancar. As he was now, he was either in the high-Adjuchas or low Vasto Lorde range, and Kisuke would bet on the latter. Menos class and above could all become Arrancar with some reasonable expectation of keeping their cognition, once they got past being menos grande anyway, so Ichigo didn’t really need to worry about becoming stronger first.

In theory, it was simple. Ichigo broke off a piece of his mask and was done.

In practice….well, he wasn’t really sure how aware of all of this Ichigo was at all. He wasn’t worried, exactly. He believed in Ichigo, corny as it was. But he was still concerned and keeping a careful watch as the Ichigo-hollow stomped through the battle field. Here, he had to admit he didn’t entirely know what was going on, and if there was an actual fight happening it must have been internal.

Eventually, the hollow reached up and broke off a bit of the mask by the chin. Kisuke thought he caught the exact moment when Ichigo’s eyes went from hollow black-and-yellow back to his usual brown ones. The tail disappeared, and the mask crumbled until it was more like headphones or earmuffs. His horns were connected by a thin portion of bone. Ichigo howled when the process finished, and it felt like the universe was large around him as it reverberated in his head. He wasn’t sure why he felt like howling back, but he tamped down on the urge.

Step three was the whole process for the original tenshintai, in theory. Ichigo needed to win these battles of mind and soul to unlock his resurrection so that he could use it against the Quincies who wanted to hurt him and his.

In practice, Kisuke wanted to learn bow and arrow to shoot his own self. Ichigo let out an echoing hollow roar loud enough to make his ears burst. If the training ground hadn’t been soundproofed, he’d have worried over what that roar was drawing in.

Or keeping out, he wondered, as Ichigo dropped into the stalk of a hollow that was defending territory. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as Ichigo let out another piercing roar and turned towards him. His mind immediately flashed through the techniques he could call up quickly to defend himself before he forced himself to go still. Aggression when Ichigo technically hadn’t started with it could provoke a response he didn’t want, and it would be a criminal waste to kill him at this late hour.

Not only that, but he had learned to trust that Ichigo would pull through whatever he needed to for the sake of others. As long as he counted in that, he was going to be just fine.

His breathing stayed even only through the ease of long experience when Ichigo grabbed him with that tail and put him in the middle of the training ground, before turning his back to him. _Is he…defending me?_

And then Ichigo ripped a garganta into existence and a number of low hollows spilled out. Another loud growl rattled the chamber, and the fight raged on.

There was a six hour span where all Ichigo was doing was killing hollows, until Kisuke thought he saw him eating them. He hadn’t been allowed to fight, but Ichigo was doing a good job of making sure he hadn’t had to.

Eighteen hours in to this, the pace of the fighting hadn’t even slowed, and Kisuke was starting to get concerned.

In the end, just after two full days after Ichigo had begun, his form began to ripple and fall back into a human shape. A wave of a hand shut the garganta, and a pulse of spiritual power large enough to topple anyone below captain-level took care of the remaining hollows. Kisuke nearly lost his hat to the wind it caused. Ichigo looked back at him, and he managed a small smile to return the partial solar eclipse in front of him.

He’d slept for a full day afterwards, but woken up in time to see Ichigo use the resurrectión to great effect against Juha Bach’s second in command and a good chunk of the remaining command structure, even if Bach himself was still at large.

Not bad for a few day’s work.

* * *

IV.

* * *

Okay, so maybe part of the research had been cannibalized from what they’d recovered from Quincy notes. It was useful to learn from your enemies, and it’s not like they had quite figured this out either.

And it was so _simple_. That’s what had also made it so hard.

The first principle of healing kidō was that the healer first had to restore the patient’s reiryoku. This wasn’t quite as simple as it sounded, and was the subject of many classes for beginning healers.

Specifically, before being transferred, the healer had to take the reiryoku out of their reserves, usually by turning it into reiatsu, to prevent from giving their entire spiritual reserves to another person permanently. This was what it had been thought Rukia had done to Ichigo when they had met, and was treated on the same order of seriousness.

Then, the healer had to strip the reiatsu of their own individual markers. Otherwise, it could be the first case of transferring fire-natured reiatsu into an ice-natured person, which had cause the recipient's inner world to melt and drown their zanpakutō, killing the teenager involved and traumatizing the healer. Some people were more or less compatible, but stripped reiryoku worked just as well as similarly-natured reiryoku, if not better, and didn’t present the risks of not doing it, so it had become standard. The stripped nature was what gave healing reiatsu its characteristic green color. It was like O negative blood—anyone could receive stripped reiatsu.

Third, the healer had to regulate transfer speed, amount, and location. This was especially important for healers who had significantly different levels of reiryoku than the person they were treating. Someone with less reiryoku needed slower transfers because they just couldn’t handle as much at once, or as much overall. Sometimes, reiatsu wanted to heal the thing that was nearest to it, and/or the one that was the most damaged. That was a problem because healing someone’s lesser damaged heart or lungs needed to take priority over fixing a broken arm, even if that arm was all the healer could get to.

And, of course, putting way too much reiryoku in a person too fast could cause their spiritual center to explode if they couldn’t adapt to it. That was an easy way to get dead.

The Quincies already had a way to store reiryoku. He’d only needed to do a few creative alterations to those spells so that it could hold stripped reiryoku without tainting it. That was the easy bit.

Replacing the human component of learning how much and how fast? Not so easy. That was likely to be in development for years to come. He had a few ideas, and he’d work on them when he had a chance. But for now, this was still useful as it was to people who were at least captain-level, and or maybe lieutenants. He passed that much on to Unohana.

And he’d taken a prototype he’d made to Ichigo, filled with his own stripped reiryoku. Somehow he doubted it would be a problem for him.

He earned another of Ichigo’s rare true smiles as he took it, which pleased him more than it should have.

It was a mere two weeks before Ichigo sheepishly brought it back to refill, and Kisuke ended up blocking a few hours out of his schedule to teach Ichigo how to strip his own reiryoku, or draw it in the Quincy way, before he ended up just doing it himself because Ichigo’s reiryoku was strange as ever.

* * *

V.

* * *

Things were settled down for once. Ichigo was back practicing in his basement on his day off from work, and it sounded like he was exploding more things than Kisuke has been lately. Not that that was unusual of late, even though Kisuke’s latest project was the kind to explode when not fully done. The reason? Ichigo was trying to figure out how to use a quincy bow and arrow.

Kisuke had started back when Ichigo was still working on accuracy with a wooden bow and arrow. He’d anticipated the problem, and he’d gotten a bit in the habit of considering things that Ichigo would need and making them. Even if this one was the first time it wasn’t specifically in response to something else.

It had made a few people uneasy, though Ichigo had been open about the fact that he was learning. Kisuke was one of the few people made privy to the reason why—

_“Bach was a terrible person,” Ichigo said. “He turned a lot of people that could have been good into a cult that only existed to bring pain, and wiped out a lot of good people to do it. My mom and Ishida’s included. But it’s the same as any other power I’ve had, or anyone else has. The power isn’t good or evil. And I can use it to help other people. If learning this power means I can save a single person more than I could without it, and I choose not to—” He shook his head. “I need to know. I need to make it better than anything he’s done with it.”_

_Kisuke put a hand on his shoulder and told him solemnly, “The actions of that man or any other isn’t your fault. Don’t pick up guilt that’s not yours.”_

_“That’s not it,” Ichigo said. “I know better than that. But my mom used these powers to save my dad, and Ishida used them to save me and our friends. I owe it to myself to do the same.”_

_“Is it because of your sisters?”_

_“Yuzu doesn’t want to take part in the spiritual world. She thinks it’s taken too much from us already. Karin wants a sword, not arrows, and between Dad and Hallibel, she’s doing okay. But if they want to know, someday…it’s our history too. Bach was wrong, but I’m not him, and it wasn't these powers that made him that way. I'm going to make it so that when people see these arrows, they know they're safe.”_

That determination hadn’t been a recipe for success though, not when Ichigo needed control instead of extra power. Kisuke plugged his ears against the loud explosions sure to be happening in his basement and jumped down, carrying a small box.

Ichigo was exactly where he was expecting him, scowling darkly at an exploded rockface and a neatly pressed, unpierced target. His sensing, at least, seemed to have improved, because he turned to Kisuke, face easing somewhat, before he announced his presence. “Urahara-san! Is something wrong?”

Kisuke’s lips curled up. “Ahh, no, just giving you a birthday gift, nothing to worry about.”

Ichigo took the box and opened it to find a solid looking bracelet. He put it on his wrist immediately, a gesture of unthinking trust smooth enough to make Kisuke blink. “Thanks. Are there any secret words this time?”

“Bippity-boppity boo!” Kisuke tried, smiling.

Ichigo rolled his eyes. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

“Just put in some of your reiatsu, not too much,” Kisuke advised.

Ichigo put in reiryoku, and the band glowed before expanding into a thin bracer along his arm.

“Good, good. Now try making a bow.”

Ichigo gestured with the same arm, using his mom’s pentacle. The bow was a little fuzzy around the edges, but it definitely resembled a Quincy bow. He drew an even shakier arrow and sent it towards the target. The bow fizzled out of existence, and the arrow wasn’t well-aimed with the speed he’d sent it at and his inexperience, but it was most of the way to the target before it exploded into a boulder on the ground, low.

Kisuke started making notes nearly immediately. Some of it could be attributed to a learning curve, but there were probably a few improvements he could make that would help with the bow stabilization and the reiryoku retention technology he used in the healing ‘potions’….

“Oi, Urahara-san!” Ichigo interrupted his muttering. “Thank you. It’s amazing.”

“Of course, Kurosaki-san. Anything for my favorite student.” The familiar words fell off of his tongue. Ichigo nodded, satisfied, and turned back to his practice. Kisuke was stuck where he was. Those words…it felt like he’d never meant them before. Not like he meant them now. _Oh._

* * *

VI. +1

* * *

“Yo.”

Urahara carefully didn’t startle. He’d been trained as an assassin first, and then as the head warden of an open-plan prison, and then as a scientist. All professions requiring a certain situational awareness and steadiness of body and mind, and the ability to hold on to the latter when the first failed. The last time that Urahara’s situational awareness had failed had been Aizen’s fault. Now, it seemed like the only one who could do that was Ichigo.

“Kurosaki-san, is something the matter?”

When Ichigo didn’t respond, Kisuke looked up from his notes to look at him. The freaked out determination started raising the alarm bells, but they were well and truly blaring when he got a look at Ichigo’s hand. Specifically the thing that was in it.

_Fuck._

Kisuke had tried for many years to do away with the Hōgyoku, even when he’d only had the one he’d created, to no avail. Hōgyokus were exceptionally powerful objects created from souls caught between leaving this reincarnation and moving on to the next. Its unformed nature came from shedding the current reincarnation but being stopped before it could take on any characteristics of a new one.

Usually, souls like this were tricky to catch. The reincarnation cycle was natural, and staying out if it was not, Hell excepted. It was good at balancing boundaries of existence because it lived on the biggest one of them, and it misinterpreted the one who caught it to take the place of the reincarnation cycle such that its user could mold it to fulfil their desires and have those desires take the place of a new body and place in the world.

There wasn’t really a way to destroy a Hōgyoku, except maybe something along the lines of the Sōkyoku, because to destroy it would destroy a soul and erase it from existence. The only alternative would be to reverse-engineer the process of creating a Hōgyoku and release it back into the reincarnation cycle. That wasn’t easy, because it already preferred its user to the reincarnation process, and might be too broken to successful reintegrate with it.

And it looked like the one that had been Aizen’s had attached itself to Ichigo.

That was….fine. It was, really. If the sheer power of the thing didn’t overwhelm you, or the possibilities of using that power. The things were rather eager to please, and there was a reason that Kisuke had kept his locked up and away from himself on bad days, and frankly as often as possible in any case.

This wasn’t something he could fix. But this was also Ichigo. He had to do something to fix it.

Kisuke grabbed his old notebooks and set them to the side. He’d refer to them later. But for now, he had to clear his mind, and tackle this like it was a fresh problem. He had more resources than he had ever had to solve this, and less time. It was going to have to require a different approach.

Quincy soul destruction wasn’t exactly something he’d had much access to before, and not that it was strong enough on its own….he started planning out what he could do to fix this.

Because Ichigo asked, and while he’d been inventing for Ichigo for a while, he’d never had to ask before. At first that was because Kisuke wasn’t someone he could have expected anything from. But now, he was anticipating Ichigo’s needs before they became evident. The only reason Ichigo was asking now was the surprise.

“Why don’t you just use it?” Kisuke asked. “How is it any different from the Quincy arrows?”

“It’s too dangerous,” were words that no one ever expected to hear out of Ichigo’s mouth. Kisuke raised an eyebrow, and Ichigo went on. “Aizen is probably prepared for that anyway, and I don’t like anything that messes that hard with your head. Also, this soul deserves better, doesn’t it?”

Kisuke hummed. “I think we can do it. But I’m going to need your help.”

“Anything you ask for,” Ichigo replied.

They did it in the basement, a week later. They coaxed the soul out of the protective gemstone by altering its bond to Ichigo, and then used different parts of their abilities to disentangle those weaker bonds. Ichigo showed just how far he had progressed with the bracelet/bracer in focusing not only the Quincy element of his power but also the Hollow element, and Kisuke showed him his bankai. Both emerged from the experience exhausted and also relieved.

The soul had dissipated before they could try a konsō, and they weren’t sure what that meant, exactly, but at the very least it hadn’t hung around.

“Thank you,” Ichigo said, when they had made it back upstairs and were sitting around a pot of tea.

“Of course,” Kisuke replied. _Of course. What else could I have done?_

Months ago, of course, the answer would have been nothing except observe for effects, not unless he presented an immediate threat, at which point he'd have killed him. Standard procedure. He shut down that voice and focused on the relief and trust and—something else, sitting clear and pretty on Ichigo’s face.

“Nothing but the best for my favorite student.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story mostly plopped out like this, lots of unnecessary worldbuilding and emotions growing in weird, not necessarily the same, directions all the time. I hope you enjoyed reading this, because I definitely enjoyed writing it!


End file.
